I like mastery as a concept but the balancing for it gets tricky. I remember when stacking mastery was a thing for most classes, but now it's a select set of specs and classes that utilize mastery while others actively forge out of it.

I like the concept of each spec having a mastery, but I don't like it being weighed as a stat. I think it should just be a flat random occurrence, mechanic, or buff that happens in combat. I also do not like reforging at all. Not one bit.

I dislike it because it has nothing to do with mastery. Its just a direct damage increasing stats, one which name suggests it is better than everything else and is unnecessarily complicated.

You're gonna have to name a class because it's not that for any healing class, tanking class and as many as half the DPS classes. There's even lists in this thread of the "flat damage increase" masteries and they aren't the majority.

Originally Posted by ACES

I also do not like reforging at all. Not one bit.

To each their own. I happen to like the idea that if I have 11% hit and 9% expertise on my Arms warrior I can take some of those stats and put them elsewhere so they'll have an effect. It makes it so that you don't have to run dungeons over and over and over and over and over and over (continue for a few weeks) trying to get the exact item you want and not just one that works for your class.

Soothing Mist:"Healing them for a minor amount every 0.5 sec, until you take any other action."Jade Serpent Statue: "The statue will also begin casting Soothing Mist on your target. healing for 50% as much as yours. " [What's half of minor?]
"Statue casts Soothing Mist at a nearby ally for toddler healing."

I have no problem well I like reforging but I don't like to have too many stats and mastery being the latest I think is too much.
In my case as a mage I need to pay attention (more or less) to int, haste, crit, mastery... oh and hit - 3 stats is ok, 4 or more is too much in my opinion. Gemming, reforging and upgrades... all of this got quite far since classic and a bit too much imo. Will there be more coming?

Last edited by Serendia; 2013-10-30 at 02:31 AM.
Reason: forgot to mention: hit

I love the idea and concept of Mastery. I dislike though, that some mastery (like Elemental Shaman) is something very organic and special, where as many others (Frost Death Knight) is just a flat damage increase. Make them all something more interesting.

I like mastery, even on specs where mastery is the worst stat. This is because EVEN on those mentioned specs mastery has the most immediately profound and recognizable differences. Our OP is a rogue, and they have specs that both love and loathe mastery. Even the one that loathes it (sub) you can see a very distinct change with one piece of gear with mastery on it.

This is the reason why mastery is nice. As another poster has also mentioned, it makes gearing more interesting and can help your playstyle.

I would like to suggest that Blizz actually expands the mastery system: Divide it into 2 parts/stats: One is a flat damage / healing / damage reduction modifiier (throughput) and another part has some interesting proc (rng related mechanic).

any mastery that actually interact with a mechanic of the specs rotation is better than a mechanic that merely boosts all abilities

For example, Affliction and Shadow are very similar to eachother, but Shadow's mastery, because it procs extra ticks, also procs things that proc on ticks, and several of shadow's talents and passives are proc-on-tick meaning increased mastery accentuates that aspect of the spec's rotation in a way a stat like crit does not. Now of course a passive proc-on-tick ability could just be a proc-on-critical-tick passive in which case it would indeed make mastery just like crit, but Shadow happens not be designed that way.

Affliction's mastery on the other hand, just increases the DoT damage, and doesn't actually interact with any procs or on-tick aspect of those DoTs. that's why Shadow Mastery>Affliction Mastery

on the other hand Destro and Demo mastery are at least as good if not better the Shadow mastery because Destro and Demo are tied specifically into the resource cycle of those specs.

I think some classes/spec have bad mastery... stuff like increases poison dmg by x% is boring... stuff like Elemental Overload that procs something I find much better and more interesting ...

As assassination: Chance on poison apply to apply a second more potent version of that poison.
Sub: Chance on hemorrhage tick to deal 50% of it's instantaneous damage and refresh duration.
Combat: like this but also have it affect a secondary target for 50% of the damage.

for Demo Warlock: Chance on chaos bolt cast to send another one dealing 20% more damage. and so on for all classes...

How much fun mastery is as stat is pretty spec-dependant, for my elemental shaman mastery is both fun and good: free extra spells, and at a proc streak she's tossing lava and lightning around like a machine gun of elemental pain, but on my arms warrior it's both mechanically (Extra hits that go mostly unnoticed, weedy ones at that) and visually craptacular (Though warriors im general can do with a bit of flair).

Hit and expertise should be rolled into one stat though, spending a lot of item reforges on losing hit and/or getting expertise (or vice versa) is neither interesting nor in any way fun...